[extropy-chat] Intelligent Design -- take *this*...

Hughes, James J. james.hughes at trincoll.edu
Tue Dec 20 22:34:08 UTC 2005


> They are: (1)
> ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by 
> invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the 
> argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs 
> the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed 
> creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID's negative attacks 
> on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. 
> As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally 
> important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in 
> the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed 
> publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research."

I'm glad they lost but 

(1) ID could be by "natural" causation, i.e. superintelligence
(2) ID does not require irreducible complexity, only statistically
unlikely complexity
(3) A successful defense does not necessarily determine the strength of
competing hypotheses
(4) Indeed, proving the central proposition of statistically unlikely
complexity in the peer-reviewed arena is what is important

J.



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